Couple of tax issues

The tax year runs from 6 April to the following 5 April. The personal allowance for the year to 5 April 2005 was £4,745 and assuming you had no other income than that set out above, you should be due back all the tax (but not the national insurance) deducted from your earnings in the year to 5 April 2005.

As you didn't have your P45 when you started with your new employer you should have completed a new starter form P46 and you correctly went onto the emergency code of 474LX - the X stands for week one which means that each week you get 1 weeks free pay, but not any from the previous weeks.

As you were employed by your current employer at 6 April 2005 you should have gone onto the correct tax code at the next payment date 22/04/05, which should have been 474L (now 489L). You have then for some reason been changed onto a BR code, which means that you have no free pay and are taxed at a flat rate of 22%. The reason for this is usually because you have another job against which your allowances are being given. If this is not the case then you should let the tax office that deals with you know as soon as possible. You can do this in writing or over the phone. the address and references should be on the notices of coding sent to you each time a new code is issued - if not ask someone in the payroll department where you work. They may want to know your recent work history, which for you is a little bit complicated because you have had a number of employers. What has possibly happened is that they know you started with one of your old employers but have never been told that you ceased working there. therefore, they believe you have 2 jobs. A quick explanation that all previous jobs have ceased and your current job is your only or main one should get the tax code changed. When it is changed it will be back dated to 6 April 2005 therefore any tax for the year you have overpaid to date will be repaid. It might also be worth asking about claiming a refund for the year to 5 April 2005 at the same time - if you get a name or reference to send your papers to there is less chance of it getting lost.

One final thing, Inland Revenue staff are almost always helpful, but they are busy so you may have to hold on the telephone before you get answered and papers do get lost so try and keep a copy of anything you send in to them.

Ring your tax office first. Your employer will have a PAYE Tax referenc. It will be 123/blah where 123 is the Tax Office, and blah is any combination of letters and numbers, which is the employer reference.

Find that out and then look up which office to ring on https://www.hmrc.gov.uk, or just ring any number (look in the phone book for Inland Revenue (or HM Revenue & Customs as it is now called) and ring that. They will tell you who you should ring. You will need your National Insurance Number when you call.

Tell them everything above, and they will tell you exactly what you need to do.

(For info: Your tax office will be the tax office that deals with your (main) employer, so in your example the tax office that deals with Tesco will be your tax office)

Hi

I've had similar problems in past and not known in which town my employers tax office was. I rang my own tax office and gave them my NI details and they told me which tax office to contact.

I had to send in a letter but got the tax refunded to me within a few weeks.